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Hi everyone,

Sandy Asher sent me an announcement about her new one-woman play and, with her permission, I’m posting it here to share with you. If you are in a position to take advantage of this opportunity, or know someone who can, please take note:

Dear friends near and far,

Following their debut mainstage production in Margaretville, NY, on Memorial Day weekend, The Open Eye Theater is now booking a tour of my one-woman play, “Walking Toward America,” directed by Amie Brockway and featuring Patricia Van Tassel. A synopsis and YouTube promo link are below.

This is a huge job, but I’m very excited about it, and I’m writing to you now in hopes you can offer contacts who might be interested in booking this piece. The play runs about 75 minutes and is appropriate for ages 10 through adult. The script is inspired by the memoirs of my dear friend Ilga Katais-Paeglis Vise, who arrived in Oak Lawn, IL, as a 17-year-old, graduated from Northwestern University, obtained her master’s degree from National-Louis University, and became a teacher, originally of first graders and later of college students at Drury University in Springfield, MO, where she and her husband are currently enjoying their retirement. There will be a reading of the play at the Library Center in Springfield on July 14 and 15, directed by David Montgomery and featuring Annie Meek Montgomery.

Please see the synopsis and video below and feel free to get in touch with me or with Amie Brockway (openeye@catskills.net ) — or to forward this information to others.

Many thanks!

Sandy

SYNOPSIS: On the eve of a three-generational pilgrimage back to her Latvian homeland, ILGA speaks to her grandchildren about their great-grandparents. In the winter of 1944-1945, ten-year-old ILGA and her parents left Riga, Latvia, to escape the Russian occupation of their city. Soon they were taken into a German forced labor camp, where they spent a brutal month — but fared better than the Jewish prisoners held on the other side of a barbed wire fence. Eventually, they walked 500 miles across frozen, war-torn northern Germany, survived strafing by Russian planes, and found their way to a refugee camp in western Germany. Six years later, they sailed through an Atlantic storm to safety and freedom in America. What makes ILGA’s event-filled story unique and compelling is that she was a child witness to the devastation of war and the sources of strength that got her family through it. In “Walking Toward America,” one actress plays ILGA as a grandmother and at ages 4, 10, and nearly-17, plus all the characters that populate her remarkable journey.